As China rises, Asia eyes better channels for security talks

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said last week that ASEAN aspired to be more than an “event organizer” for Asian powers.

“The East Asian Summit will be a big test. ASEAN has decided for first time that it wants to set the agenda,” says Kavi Chongkittavorn, a columnist for the Nation newspaper in Bangkok who writes on regional diplomacy.

Squeezed between China and the US

ASEAN countries are wary of being squeezed between the US, the dominant military power, and China, a potential challenger. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told the Shangri-La Dialog that Asia should replace the “old bilateralism” of the cold war with an effective new multilateralism. "China is our partner and the US is also our partner. It's not about taking sides,” he said.

Last year, ASEAN took a tentative step toward security cooperation by inviting larger countries to the first expanded summit of defense ministers, including representatives from China, India and the US. Although ASEAN officials have said the summit could become a multilateral forum for regional defense diplomacy, critics say it hasn’t sufficient resources and is only due to be held every three years.

Raja Mohan, strategic affairs editor for the Indian Express in Delhi, argues that Asia has yet to grapple with the extent that the rise of China has altered the balance of power. He points out that unlike the Western countries that formed NATO, Asian countries don’t currently face an external threat, making it harder to define common security goals.

“The structures that have preserved peace [in Asia] for the last 60 years have not adapted, so you have to look at other structures,” he told a conference last week in Malaysia.

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